Related

There is an excellent documentary gourmets are sure to enjoy called Entre les Bras, which details the handover of kitchen duties by the revered French chef Michel Bras to his son, Sébastien. Aside from heart-wrenching scenes of a weary father looking less than enthused about the talents of his anxious son, there are some fabulous glimpses of this famous restaurant in action. The dining room, overlooking the breathtaking plateau d’Aubrac around the town of Laguiole, is pure minimalist chic. The kitchen epitomizes the word spotless. And the food? Ah, the food is a delicate mix of whimsical, natural and highly artistic. Michel Bras’s restaurant is one I longed to experience for the past two decades. And yet even though I was vacationing in the area in 1999, I couldn’t make it. Why? Though heartbroken to admit it, there was just no way I could afford it.

If one were to spend a night at Bras’s today, the investment would start with $257 for the top tasting menu. As it would be unthinkable to drive anywhere in this deep countryside after enjoying even two glasses of wine (blood alcohol levels are very strict in France), one would have to add $365 for the least expensive bedroom. For breakfast, count another $51. So dinner and lodging for two at Michel Bras would set a couple back at least $1,000. And guess what: Bras is far from the most expensive three-Michelin-star restaurant. Dinner at The Fat Duck in England costs an eyebrow-raising $312 per person for food alone. The tasting menu at Alain Passard’s Arpège in Paris is $413.

No doubt there are countless wealthy people on the planet for whom $1,000 for a Michelin three-star meal is not a financial stretch, and given a special occasion, many of us would surely spring for a famous restaurant as well. Fashionistas don’t blink at the thought of buying $1,000 Louis Vuitton bags. Barbra Streisand fans pay huge sums to see the diva sing live. Cautious drivers often save up for a costly but super-safe Volvo. Wine lovers fork over for that $275 of Krug Champagne for New Year’s Eve. And considering the quality of ingredients and number of hands required to transform them into something earthmoving, you might be surprised to learn that many elite restaurants barely break even. Though the world is reeling in what seems like a never-ending financial crisis, there is — and will always be — a demand for luxury goods.

Yet when it comes to super-elite restaurants, I have one complaint. Too many food writers drool all over them with very little consideration for the fact that dinner at said establishment will set you back a mortgage payment. Why is it that when the food media write about restaurants like Michel Bras or The Fat Duck or Arpège price is rarely mentioned? Probably because so few food writers pay for meals out of their own pocket. Food bloggers get a regular lashing for accepting free meals, yet professional journalists often have the meals covered by the news source they write for and an increasing number are accepting meals on press trips. So when analyzing a meal, price is rarely mentioned for one reason: Chances are the person who is writing about it doesn’t have a dime invested in the experience.

Recently, I was invited to dine in one of Europe’s top restaurants by a tourism organization. Boy, was it swish! There were truffles, foie gras, lobster, fine wines and just the most gorgeous dessert topped with the most perfect quenelle of pistachio ice cream. Heaven! But you know what I liked best about this meal? When it was time for the cheque to hit the table — you know that time when you sit there and you start to sweat and wonder whether your credit card will go through, or whether you really should have ordered that $24 flute of Champagne to start with, or if you should have booked a table in this crazy-expensive restaurant in the first place? — well, this time, none of that happened because no cheque arrived. None. I just wiped my mouth, put down the thick linen napkin, and sauntered out the door. Wow, what a feeling! And really, what a restaurant! People say it’s one of the world’s best, and after that dinner would I ever agree.

Yet the same could not be said about a meal I experience in Paris three years before. Like the other, this establishment was considered one of the world’s best and also had the reputation for being one of France’s most affordable three-Michelin-starred restaurants. We ate like kings and drank like Grand Prix fans on a bender. But when the bill arrived, the fun came to a screeching halt. Four of us handed over some 1,800 euros and the mood swiftly shifted from celebratory to morose. This awful feeling of excess was aggravated by the fact that, just that summer, after being hit with a $900 lunch for three at another multi-starred restaurant, I vowed never to dump preposterous amounts on restaurants again.

After some 15 years of restaurant reviewing, I’ve become less interested in food trends and increasingly sensitive to the subject of money in restaurants. How easy it is to recommend a restaurant when you’re not paying the bill! Even those of us lucky enough to have costs covered by our employers never quite feel the sting of that inflated “addition.” Yet off-duty, at those lofty restaurants where I picked up the tab, I often walked away feeling dumb for having paid so much for nothing more than dinner — and a dinner that didn’t change my life or even teach me about haute gastronomy. No, all this dinner did was put a major dent in my savings. As a passionate restaurant-goer, I can justify spending $200 per person for a great meal. But when you’re getting into $300, $400, $500 per person territory, the culinary thrills categorically fail to meet expectations.

In the past, to avoid blowing my cover by using a credit card in my name, I always reviewed restaurants with $340 cash in my pocket. And there was no missing when paying the bill that when I doled out the twenties, many of my dining companions gawked at seeing all that cash hit the table. Some even looked away!

At a time when credit cards have conveniently erased that image of cash from our conscience, and countless food and travel writers/bloggers rave about comped restaurant meals with only a flurry of dollar signs in a sidebar as an indication of price, our aversion to money talk in food writing seems cowardly. Of course, restaurant reviews cannot become consumer reports where we constantly gripe about parsimonious wine pours and tut tut over a $45 veal chop. Yet on the flip side, this blasé attitude displayed by the food press toward exorbitant prices and endless adulation towards elite chefs whose food can be experienced by a tiny fraction of the population verges on the ridiculous.

My restaurant critic resolution for the New Year? It’s time we stop pretending price doesn’t matter. In 2013, it’s time to get real.

For more food and wine talk, tune in to Dinner Rush with Lesley Chesterman on Saturdays from 3 to 4 p.m. on News Talk Radio CJAD 800.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.